


Detachment

by DarkSideOfTheSpoon



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: i uh am very sorry, thanks i hate it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-25 20:46:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12540856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSideOfTheSpoon/pseuds/DarkSideOfTheSpoon
Summary: Is Gleb really sure he's actually there?





	Detachment

**Author's Note:**

> hey uh so i kind of cheated.. Happy Gleb-O-Ween?

Wind rattles the glass in the rundown room Gleb had rented. His eyes blink open slowly, sight shifting focus on the dust motes that dance in the light streaming in through the window. After a moment, he doesn't immediately recognize his surroundings and wills himself to panic, bolting forward as if he isn't used to his body weight. He stands up, forcing his body to tremble as he crosses the room, but when he gets to the window, he has already stopped. His heart and mind are calm.  There is something he feels he is forgetting but Gleb can't bring himself to care. 

Just as he doesn't care that his suit is wrinkled. He woke up fully clothed, belt and shoes still on, which would have sent him into a tailspin on any other day. He simply stands at the window, staring out onto the alleyway below, watching with hawk-like intensity as a coat strung along a clothesline beats back and forth against the wind. 

Paris.

He blinks, stepping back, coming to the realization that he's in... Paris. Still. 

Why?

 Gleb faces the room, squinting. He shouldn't be here. His shoulders cave in, almost forced forward by a hunch that he needs to leave. Gleb glances back as he begins to step lightly towards the door, a chill running along his spine when he gets the sensation of watching himself move. The feeling never ceases, not when he pushes the door open, taking more effort than he recalled it needing, not when he treads carefully to the lobby of the hotel, eyeing the hall as if someone were examining his every gesture. But there's no one looking. The tired concierge behind the desk doesn't even glance up from his paper.

Gleb braces himself as he exits the building, preparing to be chilled to the bone by the relentless wind that woke him. He is almost disappointed to find himself utterly unaffected by the weather the howling noise promised. 

This is what Parisians call winter _._

He walks away, his head slung low, ducked down. He couldn't be caught dead in Paris. The mid-morning sun peeks over the high rooftops, looming over the narrow street and casting dim shadows. Gleb flinches every now and then as automobiles come thundering by, in which case he leans away from the offending noise to the wall. The vehicles are too few and far between for him to get used to, he does his best to convince himself. It's perfectly normal to be jarred by unfamiliar sounds. 

They had trucks in Leningrad.

A weak, frustrated groan escapes his mouth after the fourth time a truck passes and he still jerks. Gleb freezes, watching the few people out walking the quiet residential street silently pass by without a second glance. Staring after one, he scoffs at how unbothered and nonchalant the French were. The haughty notion fades quickly, forgetting immediately why he was gazing into empty space. 

He looks up from the corner one pedestrian disappeared around to the street sign above, and then the one across the street from that. The building numbers, the foliage, the cobblestones were all unfamiliar. He steps backwards, almost tripping over himself as he hurriedly glances around at his surroundings. Failing to remember which direction he came from, he can't even bring himself to worry about the fact that he's hopelessly lost and furrows his eyebrows in an expression of confusion as a way to perhaps invoke some sort of emotion voluntarily. 

But he doesn't. Gleb merely chooses a direction and begins walking again. 

As he wanders aimlessly deeper into the city, the streets begin to become more populated as the thoroughfare widens into a mildly busy center of commerce. Pedestrians peel out onto the streets, leaning into the gusts of wind and gripping their heavy coats. They walk with determination, clutching parcels, some not bothering to look up. Gleb sidesteps a woman leaving a café, hands wrapped around a pastry and eyes closed in unadulterated joy as she inhales. He returns to the far side of the sidewalk, doing his best to hide his face. 

The air around him is lively, and Gleb doesn't realize why until a sound pulls him to a stop.

Voices, singing in Russian, rise above the chill and the wind and Gleb closes his eyes, memories of when he was younger playing in his mind. His mother and father embraced by the fire, a tree, weighted with decorations in the corner. Gleb trying to sneak a bit of the porridge mother was preparing, and getting chastised. Sitting in the church pews, singing the very songs he heard now. He silently mouths the words, stumbling over them. 

It's almost Christmas. He stares up at the cathedral-an orthodox cathedral. Gleb wraps his hands around the iron gate, confusingly warm to the touch and tries to read the sign above the door. The Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky. He sighs and imagines what it must look like inside. It's been so long since he's been inside an active church, and never one this lavish. He stares at the warm wooden door, unmoving. He only blinks when a nun steps outside, carrying a basket. He could have sworn he felt the heat as it radiated from all the way outside the church before the door swung to a close. Looking up from her path, she notices him after a few steps and grants him a pleasant smile, gesturing towards the door as if giving him permission to enter. Seemingly as unhindered by the weather as he is, the nun makes her way out of the courtyard.  

For a second, he considers her offer. He thinks about walking up the steps and joining the choir, kneeling in front of the altar. Gleb itches to reach over to the hibernating bush and snap off a handful of twigs to lay as an offering to the shrine. His fingers twitch, muscle memory bringing to mind the gesture one makes for the sign of the cross. 

But Gleb looks down to his feet, stepping back from the gate. Hesitant to let go of the iron, he eventually lets his hands drop to his side and continues on down the street. He doesn't remember how to pray anyway. 

The singing fades away, melding with the breeze and eventually, Gleb hears nothing but the quiet ambience of the street. He turns and turns, one corner and then another, aimed to wherever the wind blows, not bothering to look up at the signs. Not that it matters. 

It's not like he could read them.

He walks for what seems to be hours, what most likely is hours. There's no way of telling what time it is. The sunlight weakly streams down onto the avenues below, drowned out by a layer of clouds that make him long for nothing but to lay right here on the street, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket.

Practically stumbling into the circle, Gleb skirts around the curb of a monument, a large ornate arch.  Peering through the somber and still crowd gathered underneath, he lets out a breath when he recognizes the shapes on the ground as wreaths. The Triumphal Arch... 

He read about it in a newspaper after the war, the tomb of the unknown soldiers, when he was already home and in a bed. There was a time when he thought he might be among the nameless bodies crying family members gave up on as they lay flowers at the etching. He vacantly recalls his friends and himself, all too young, knocking back vodka in remembrance of the soldiers in their unit that didn't make it to the rendezvous.  

He shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets and picks up the pace. 

The streets become wider once more, as he wanders away from the neighborhoods. The air becomes crisper, more electric as the sky dims. The sounds of city reach his ears and he slowly learns all the fuss about nighttime in Paris is true. The furor becomes palpable as he steps onto a large boulevard, unsure of which way to turn. Laughing couples waltz by him, not jumping out of the way of the speeding cars on the road beside them. He could see all the way across the calm, glittering river to the other bank, and the bleary sun dipping low. Gawking too long at a street musician, Gleb hastily turns to his left and strides along the footpath. 

Music emanates from the bars and saloons along the river, and at every other building, he lets himself flash a look inside the frosted windows at the drinking and dancing people inside. They've have removed their coats and tilt their faces backwards, grinning to the night sky. 

He stops abruptly, recognizing his surroundings. He remembers this corner, the lamplight glinting off the railing across the street. The building façade he stands beside. A few paces away, a vaguely familiar pair speak in hushed, rapid tones, a taller, bearded gentleman and a shorter, scrappier man. He's seen them before. He knows it when the older man looks up at him, squinting. The other tilts his head towards Gleb, raising his eyebrows. As their conversation halts, Gleb quickly looks forward, rapidly making his way away from the pair. 

He doesn’t slow his pace until he finds himself retracing the exact steps he must have taken-what was it, days ago. The music he hears is familiar, but more buoyant and festive than the singing from the cathedral. It reminds him of home nonetheless. He can't make out the wording on the sign overhead, but the gaudy red light glowing down upon the pavement eliminates any other argument he could have mustered. The Neva Club. An uneasy feeling, the first genuine emotion he perceived all day, begins to grow and fester in his gut as he tries to recall what his reason for being here was. Footsteps from around the corner clatter onto the pavement by the entrance and Gleb instinctively dodges behind a pillar. Cigarette smoke wafts away from the exhausted voices. 

"The Bolshevik moles are getting out of hand. We're not under their jurisdiction anymore, why can't they just let us be?" The woman exhales.

"I am more confused than anything. Usually the point of a spy is to sabotage, yes? What good does the sloppy murder of the lady in waiting to an exiled former empress bring to them?"

The long silence as the first woman takes a drag of her cigarette brings Gleb's shaking hands to his throat. The levee breaks. He stumbles away from the pillar, gripping and clawing at his coat, digging into the pocket for the gun he knew he left behind.

"Fear? To scare us into staying silent? I myself am terrified of..."

The woman's voice is drowned out by the screaming in Gleb's head. The entire earth shifts and every footstep turns into a blast. The music from inside becomes frantic and hurried. The partiers jump back, alarmed by the increasingly volatile and sick looking man that seemingly appears from nowhere. He glances up at them from his keeled over position, the stench from the tobacco burning in his nose. Gleb opens his mouth to speak but his throat clenches, crushed and twisted. Desperately he taps his chest, falling to his knees. The women step back, baffled by the scene before them. One hurries off into the club as the other reaches down to him. He flinches, catching the distorted reflection of a figure on the ground as it gleams off the polished tile. 

The world spins and everything becomes red. The red gown, the hands, pistol. His face, twisted in anger and fear is red. Gleb trips forward, pulling himself up to his full height and glares down at the woman. His expression immediately falters, recognizing the way the terror permeates out of her. She cowers below him, retreating back to the entrance of the club. The other woman grabs her arm, pulling her back inside. Two more people, uniformed workers cross towards him. 

"They took EVERYTHING!" He pulls his fist back in an attempt to be menacing. The effort knocks what little breath he had out of his lungs and he slumps against the pillar. He chokes out his words, heat clouding his eyes as his tremoring hands try to convey his urgency. 

"They took everything..." He tries to explain. "I..." Gleb teeters, gasping for air. His world stopped breathing. He points to the body on the ground only he could see. The buzzing light from the neon around screech at him, accusing him, rising with the tempo of the instruments. 

" I destroyed... everything..."

He heaves forward away from the pillar, insides burning, wrenching and threatening to tear their way out. The men reach out to grab him but he slips by them, skidding off the tile into the road. Gleb flinches, not recognizing the loud popping noise as a car backfiring as he had all those times earlier and turns to watch the immediate twin lights until they are practically on top of him. The horn blares and he gulps, freezing in place. He doesn't have time to scream like she did as everything red, immediately goes black. 

* * *

 

 

Gleb catches his breath again, cutting off the voices that spoke to each other in hushed tones. He wakes up, except this time genuine uncontrollable panic sends him careening forward. Consuming, searing pain immediately immobilizes him on the stiff white hospital bed. His vision reels around the blinding room, trying in vain to make out the faces watching him. A dark brown sleeve grips his shoulder, barring him from sitting up. 

"Afternoon, Comrade." The voice is dark.

"Horrible collision you had out there, commander." The other voice teeters on the edge of laughter. 

Gleb squints at the soldiers-Russian soldiers lounge in chairs beside the bed he lay in. They face each him, hats in their laps. 

"Oh, how rude of us." The balmy voiced one receives an elbow to the ribs as the laughter dies in the other's voice. "It must be quite a shock to wake after such an incident to unfamiliar faces. This is Mikhail-"

The other is interrupted. "They're singing your praises in Leningrad, Vaganov. I don't see how fulfilling a mission grants that, I must admit."

"That’s no way to address your superior." The other one turns quickly to the darker one. 

Gleb looks away from the soldiers, his vision swimming. His entire body clenches, regardless of the agony that pulsates through him. Every word that leaves their mouths sends his mind into another kind of torment. 

"Eliminating a high-profile target on short notice? Without needing to infiltrate the Whites? We have been here for months." 

The gruff soldier grits his teeth, leaning forward as he pulls his arm away from the restricting position across Gleb's chest. "Got the news from home a few hours ago. Congratulations, Commissioner of State Security..." They glance to their partner. "What was it? Third class?"

"First, now."

He scoffs, standing. "We'd better let the commander get some rest. He doesn't look so well." 

Gleb doesn't peel his eyes away from the ceiling, unflinching as the metal chairs scrape against the floor. In his peripheral, he sees them salute sharply and turn, their footsteps echoing in the small room. 

The tension leaves his being in one fell swoop. The pain no longer wracked him. The chaos and wailing that permeated and drowned every sound he heard, faded. His vacant gaze blanches out to match the still room he occupies. Gleb swore in that moment, as the door slammed behind the soldiers, the very soul he clung to desperately the few frantic minutes before, evaporated, dying within him. 

He closes his eyes, gone.


End file.
